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Is it just the same corporate work that other firms do, but just tailored towards start ups? Maybe I'm being dense, but I really just don't get what the difference is.

Well, that depends on what you mean by "corporate work that other firms do." When you generally think of corporate work, you think M&A, capital markets, debt financing, etc. When you do emerging company works, the goal is to get your clients to the stage where they're doing those major corporate transactions, but a good bulk of your work is getting there.

You often start with just some founders with a cool idea, incorporate an entity for them, handle their early IP assignment and common stock issuance, manage their seed/angel/venture financing (often starting with a convertible note, which is a debt instrument that will convert to equity on the next financing round). You get to do very "corporate" work things like write a certificate of incorporation, draft initial board consents, negotiate with investors on a stock purchase agreements and related documents, etc that non-emerging company firms don't deal with as much. As a junior you'll often be communicating directly with the CEO, founders, and so on. As the company gets bigger, you start to handle more stuff - for example, when they hire employees, you'll deal with their employment agreements, confis/non-competes, etc. You become sort of an outside general counsel, until they get big enough to hire someone as general counsel (which may well be from their outside firm). Eventually, you'll probably take them public or deal with their sale to a larger company, which is the "corporate work that other firms do" but you've done all that early stage work first.

By contrast, two guys with a cool idea for an iPhone app aren't calling up someone at Cravath or Skadden and asking them to help get them off the ground, they call a firm that knows their emerging company work.

(Anon because I'm a junior associate who does a lot of this work and my description is based on my experience so it might out me.)

I know I'm not supposed to post in here, but do you mind shooting me a PM, anon? Really interested in this line of work. Thanks!